The Story Behind Cincy Stories: A Conversation with Shawn Braley and Chris Ashwell
It started with a tweet. Well, not exactly, but in a way it did. We met Chris Ashwell and Shawn Braley at MOTR, the place where it – Cincy Stories’ first event – all began. Cincy Stories is a nonprofit centered around community and storytelling. In a time of divide, Chris and Shawn realized that sharing stories helps connect people; storytelling is what helps us come together and relate to one another. Cincy Stories uses different mediums to help people tell their stories, with the hope that hearing others’ experiences can begin to break down whatever barriers separate us. Each person has a story to tell and everyone has the opportunity to learn something from hearing the stories of others. This is truly just the beginning for this dynamic duo. Please enjoy as Chris and Shawn share their own story about how Cincy Stories came to be – and much more.
Interview by Kate Ducey. Photography by Moriah Kenton.
Talk a little bit about what Cincy Stories is.
Shawn Braley: Cincy Stories is a nonprofit: We work to build community through story. We do that through live events we host at the Woodward Theater and other places around the city, where people just share their story on a stage; we do that through documentary media we make and post online; and we do that through community engagement, which is what we call story galleries: community hubs, shared spaces for a neighborhood where anybody can come in. There’s no barrier to come in and it's kind of like a mix of a living room, coffee shop, and art gallery where you can come into the space, relax, have a cup of coffee, hang out, tell stories, and hear stories from your neighbors who live in that neighborhood. We spend a year in a neighborhood and that's also how we source the stories for the documentaries.
What inspired you to start Cincy Stories?
Chris Ashwell: Each of us has our own inspiration. The key component for both of us is the compassion of true stories: real-life stories told in different ways. I studied visual journalism and wanted to be a documentary filmmaker.
Shawn: I studied English but I was a pastor. The reason I wanted to become a pastor is that I wanted to build a community with people in a unique way. I grew up very religious, but I wanted to do it differently. I saw a bunch of barriers in being a pastor to build a community. Of course, religion itself is a barrier for people trusting one another. So that's where my mindset was: seeing people connect through stories, [thinking] this is the way to do this without the religious stuff, because stories are how we connect.
Chris: I wanted to use audiovisual as a path; I wanted to make both radio and visual documentaries a utility. Like, how could I figure out a way of utilizing it to where it benefitted regular or average people in the community? So we each had our own individual ideas. Shawn wanted to do a live event and I wanted to do community-based video work and we met at the right time.
How did you two meet?
Shawn: We both worked at Fireside Pizza. Chris was a bartender and I worked in the kitchen. When we had downtime, we ended up talking about the things we wanted to do. We just kind of took it from there.
So it just started as a casual conversation that led to more?
Shawn: Yeah, we both had ideas on how we wanted to do it and we were both like, "Why don't we just bring those ideas together and put it under one umbrella?"
After you had the idea, what were the steps that got you started?
Shawn: Chris had just gotten a camera, so it wasn't like we were going to go posting documentaries. So we were like, what's the easiest thing to do first? We can host a live event; we know the guys at MOTR. Let's do a live event in their basement and let's reach out to some people that others might be interested to hear their stories. So we actually tweeted at Chris Seelbach, Molly Wellmann, and Ryan Messer and were like, “Hey, would you share a story at this event at Cincy Stories... that has never happened before... that you have no idea why we are asking?” And they all said yes, just through Twitter. I didn't even follow up with them; I didn't get any contact information. So, we came that night, hoping they would show up, and they all did. And so did 75 other people in the basement here at MOTR. You can fit 30 or 40 people comfortably, so it was already wrapped around the stairs. We are like, “Woah, we are tapping into something here.” So, that's when we knew we should continue this and expand it while continuing to do the live events.
Has social media continued to be helpful in your journey, because it all started with one tweet?
Shawn: Yeah, social media has been hugely beneficial because of the access that you get, both to the people like Chris Seelbach and Molly Wellmann, but also everyday people.
Why do you think Cincinnati needs Cincy Stories?
Shawn: Cincinnati... We are a growing city, but we are a disconnected city. The stat we throw out all the time is that Cincinnati is the fifth most segregated city in the country. So, we need to be able to listen to each other's stories in order to build bridges, as there are already divides.
If we don't see each other as human, we are just going to be at each other's throats. So, that's why we think Cincy Stories is a needed thing in our city.”
–Shawn Braley
And if we want to have the hard conversations – Chris says this all the time. [Looks at Chris.] I don't want to take your saying because I won't say it as well. We don't want to have hard conversations later about what we want to do with our city and the changes that are happening in our neighborhoods. We have to know each other first.
Chris: We have to see each other as humans first.
Shawn: And if we don't see each other as human, we are just going to be at each other's throats. So, that's why we think Cincy Stories is a needed thing in our city, for sure.
Yeah, once you remove everything else and just talk to people, you'll start to realize that you have a lot more in common than you thought.
Chris: We always say that the human experience is a lot more similar than it is different. Everyone is sure that the life experience they have is vastly different from the life experience of the next person. When it really gets down to it, that is true and we all have a lot of different experiences. No one person's human experience is completely alike, but there is a lot more there than we give it credit for. If we can kind of break through that... That's one of the things we do with our live events, with most of our storytelling in general: We don't make it thematic. We get a lot of input from people like, “You should do a Cincy Stories that's all focused through this.”
Shawn: Or focused on addiction or homelessness.
Chris: Yeah, and it's not that we don't see that. Like, take people who experience homelessness for an example. If we have an event that's called, like, “Homeless Stories”, then, inevitably, the people who are going to come are almost certainly going to be supportive of people who are experiencing that situation and are already empathetic toward people experiencing that situation.
So you can't have those hard conversations if you already agree.
Chris: Yeah, in order for a bridge to be built, there needs to be a divide. If I'm already on the side of homeless rights, it's a very empowering evening to see that on stage, to hear those stories. But, the people who aren't empathetic to homeless people didn't show up. So, we'd rather have five random Cincinnatians, and have one of them be experiencing homelessness, which we have done before. So that way, the people who came to see all the different folks in the room – the city council people, the bar owner, the business owner, whatever – are hearing a story from someone who is not in the community they thought they would be hearing from. So maybe there is someone in that room who didn't know or have empathy for the person in that situation, or maybe didn't see that person as human. And then they heard a story.
So, do you have criteria for the stories that people tell?
Shawn: It's not like a criteria.
Chris: It's guidelines.
Shawn: No origin stories. So, like, [tell us] life stories. You have ten minutes: Tell me a story.
Chris: A moment in time. The best stories that are told live on stage are literally–
Shawn: A moment in time. It's like you're telling it like, this happened, and then this happened...
Chris: One morning I woke up and this happened.
Shawn: Not like, six months later this happened, and then six months... That can be fine and we don't stop people from doing that, but no life stories, no origin stories. If you're a politician, I don't want to hear about how you became a politician. If you're a business owner, don't tell me about starting your business. If you're gay, maybe don't talk about your coming out story – not that it isn't powerful and necessary for some people to hear. It's just, there are other aspects of your life that people want to hear – other stories you've lived that nobody will expect. They'll be like, “Oh, that's the gay guy, so he's going to talk about being gay,” or “That's the politician, so they're going to talk about being a politician.” Instead, we just try to get people to talk about everyday stories and then we coach them through what a story actually is.
Chris: That's what I was going to say: It's most important that it’s a story. The term or word storytelling has become so convoluted – you hear it overused, in my opinion. The way we communicate is through stories. Everybody in this room has told countless stories today, though they might not be groundbreaking stories.
People get up there [to share stories at our events] and they're like, “This is a TEDTalk” or “This is my time to inspire.” And we really need to pull people away from that because inspiration is just one emotion that stories can bring out. You don't need to be the hero of your story; you don't have to inspire people through your story. Stories, like all good art, should leave some room for the viewer to interpret what you are trying to say. At the end of a story, you want to say, “This is what I've learned.” But you start to lose that connection that only stories can really build. So the reason we say no origin stories is because most of the time, those aren't even stories; they're like essays — not all narratives are stories.
Shawn: That's why the guidelines are in place: to help people and point them toward a story.
Chris: And we have a list of things we call “story stories”; they’re just very easy story prompts. Even if you don't pick one of those prompts, they're just to get your mind going on what a story is. “Tell me about a time you disappointed your parents.” That's going to illicit a story. It's harder than we would have ever guessed to get people to just realize what a story is.
How would you define a story?
Chris: It has conflict, it has exciting incidents, it has a resolution... Sometimes people don't realize that's what a story needs to encapsulate.
Shawn: A story needs to have an ark, so it needs to take you from one place to another – from A to B. You need to grow in your story in some way, so there needs to be some conflict you have to overcome. That's the biggest part that people [often] miss: Conflict is the most important part of a story. I say all the time that everyone's favorite Star Wars [movie] is “The Empire Strikes Back” and that's because that movie is all conflict.
Chris: No resolution!
Shawn: Yet, we love it. We are desperate for conflict because we are all experiencing it all the time. We want to see someone overcome it.
Chris: A very close second to that, I would say, is stakes. So, something to be gained or lost. It's much more gripping [when] the stakes are higher.
What makes a great story?
Shawn: I think those two things will almost certainly be a good story.
Chris: The higher the stakes, the higher the quality.
Shawn: The closing to the story is important. There are a lot of times when we've talked about stories...
Chris: [That are] just a climax.
Shawn: And however it ended, it was just like, ‘“Figure it out.” You can't force it if you lived it.
A story should feel like it's being told organically. If it's too overworked, it doesn't feel organic.
–Chris Ashwell
Chris: [A great story] is something not as definable. The best stories that we've heard, live on a stage or in front of a camera, are the ones where [the storyteller] kind of lets themselves be vulnerable enough to just tell the story. You need to have your points mapped out in your head. We always say to know your last line, because then you can land the plan. Like, have scaffolding. There's something really powerful [about] somebody who's just gotten on stage and is like, “You know what, I'm just going to tell you this story.” That's vulnerable because there's no safety net underneath them and they don't have every line mapped out. A story should feel like it's being told organically. If it's too overworked, it doesn't feel organic.
Shawn: If it's not worked out and you stumble over it, people are going to be like, “We're here for you.”
Chris: One of my favorite moments in stories, the live ones, is when somebody is telling a story and they have a realization about the subject matter or whatever. It's those really interesting moments when you know you're getting a really good organic story when somebody is remembering things that happened to them [as they relive it].
Is there a conversation aspect to the events after the stories?
Chris: One of the things we hope to do from the work we do, at least in a small way, is to help create a storytelling culture. When stories are told right, you feel something and that’s the magic of storytelling. Take that with you in your everyday life and ask questions and hear stories and tell your story. Create that magic in your everyday life and beautiful things will come from that.
Can you talk a little bit more about Street Stories?
Shawn: Street Stories is a project we started about a year into doing this work and we'd been making these documentaries without a real direction for them. We both lived in Walnut Hills at the time, so we mostly made them about people in Walnut Hills. We got the attention of the Walnut Hills Redevelopment Foundation. The executive director reached out to us and said he was really inspired by [a project] called “One Block” that was based out of New York City from New York Magazine. It was about one developing block in a gentrifying neighborhood and they told stories about every neighbor on that block and it was really interesting. He was like, “I'd like something like that about Walnut Hills.”
So, we talked about it and came back to them. We called it Street Stories because we wanted to focus on one major street and the offshoots of that street, but basically stories from everyday people. When we met with them to get the money that they were going to pay us, that was the first time we were ever making money. They said, “We actually got this from a creative placemaking grant, so in order to do this, you need a physical space.” [At the time, there were] these new storefronts, so where Video Archive is now, [and they gave us] one of those spaces. So we started talking and were like, “Why don't we do something really cool with this space?”
Chris: We didn't need a studio or office; we needed to get out in the community, if anything.
Shawn: We needed to get to know people; how do you get to know people? You can't go door to door. If you go to a community council meeting, [you’re] just going to connect with leaders in the community – which is important. But we wanted to dig deeper and meet everyday people who maybe aren't active in their community. So, we dreamt up the story gallery idea and figured, “Let's try this with the grant money they're giving us and put money toward filling this space with touch screens and a story booth, comfortable seating and a kitchen area for people to make coffee…” Just make it really comfortable and cool and unique because there wasn't a space for everyone to come in and connect.
Chris: There were a few restaurants.
Shawn: But there’s the cost barrier, and they weren't connecting [people] across cultural, social, or racial boundaries. So, we wanted to see if we could make that happen. So, that's where the idea was formed. We opened that in June of 2016 and nobody wanted to come in. Chris and I would stand outside the front like “Hey guys, welcome to our space” and it was just like two white guys [laughs] and people were like “Nah, we're good.” It wasn't until we had free barbeque one night that a bunch of people came in. Then we were able to connect with the community and they were able to see the space and start to understand the idea.
Chris: Build a little trust.
Shawn: So now we do that in every neighborhood. When we're doing that, one of the things we want to [use] the space [to do is] meet everyday people that we wouldn't meet otherwise, like a known community leader.
Chris: Like that no one has ever met, like undiscovered people. [Laughs.]
Is there a particular person or story that comes to mind?
So, now we're connecting through the act of sharing stories, the act of hearing stories. That was a big moment for us.
–Chris Ashwell
Shawn: Yeah, like the George story. [Looks at Chris.] Do you want to tell the Little League story in Walnut Hills?
Chris: So, while we were working in Walnut Hills, there was this guy named George Smith who used to play baseball. And [people told us] he had a lot of crazy experiences with that, and we should go talk to this guy. So, we did. [At first] we couldn't find him. Sometimes you just have to find people walking around the neighborhood. We heard that he goes to The Greenwich like every day. So we went there, and they thought we were cops, so they told us we had to leave.
Shawn: They were open, people were sitting at the bar, and they said, “We're closed, get out of here.” And they told us later, “We thought you guys were cops.” [Laughs.]
Chris: I don't feel like we put off a cop vibe, but apparently we do. [Laughs.] But we eventually found George. So we started talking to George and we found out that he played baseball professionally for the New York Mets minor league in the '80s and all kinds of cool stuff. He went to Cuba and met Fidel Castro because there was a baseball exchange program at the time; one of the only Americans from his generation to step foot in Cuba. He got to travel all around and meet all these famous baseball players. Just some really cool stories, but he didn't necessarily spend a lot of time talking about baseball with people who didn't know him.
There was a part of his story that he was ashamed of: The day he got the call that he was going to try out for the majors, he was in a car accident. He went out and partied and drank too much and was in a car accident and has been in a wheelchair ever since. So, at the height of his career, he lost it all. It has taken him a long time to get over it, but he didn't realize that community members would be so proud to have him share his story. One of the things he shared was that he believed God had intended for him to play baseball so he could teach kids. He was like, you gotta know the game really well to be able to teach it really well.
While he thought he was going to be a famous baseball player, he thinks now that his destiny in life was to teach kids. The problem is that Walnut Hills hasn't had a Little League team in over thirty years. The businesses pulled out years ago, so none of those kids play baseball. These kids aren't getting a chance to try baseball like they may have in George's youth. We realized that at the end of his story, we needed to put something that says “George wants to start a Little League.” Not everything we do has a call to action, but sometimes it is pertinent or necessary. We thought people, after hearing George's story, will probably want to help.
We put that video up in our story gallery and the owner of Video Archive, Jacob Trevino, was hanging out in the story gallery, watched the video, and came over with tears in his eyes and said, “Little League was so important to me when I was a kid. I want to know how I can help George.” So, now we have a business owner who has the means to help start a Little League; he wants to help. George, who is from one world, and Jacob Trevino, who is from one world – you’ve got this lifelong Walnut Hills resident who goes to places like The Greenwich and dive jazz bars, and then this guy who is opening this hipster speakeasy that looks like a video store. Two people who would – I was going to say never – but probably not connect. That connection was going to be hard to come by. So, now we're connecting these two through the act of sharing stories, the act of hearing stories. That was a big moment for us.
One of my favorite things about George's story is that people from the neighborhood would watch the story and say, “I've seen him for so many years,” “I've seen him around the neighborhood,” “I've seen him at Kroger, but I had no idea that he was a baseball player.” That was really cool to us and that goes a long way. Here's this aha moment that stories can be actionable. Just by sharing this story, George was activated into his community. People started to hear his story, and a Little League is being started.
Shawn: It started this past summer.
Chris: Not just from one business, but several businesses are starting a Walnut Hills Cup. So that's happening, but also George as a person was activated through this story. People have started calling him Mr. Baseball, he's on a mural in Walnut Hills with his baseball glove and bat, he was elected to his community council, which he wasn't interested in before. He's leading the Little League and he's spearheading the whole thing to teach all these kids. It all stemmed from him sharing his story and he's really proud of it – it won an Emmy. He's always showing it off on his phone. He's got it saved, so it's an easy way for him to now connect with his neighbors to show what he did in the past.
Shawn: That's a big element of why we do the Street Stories project: going to neighborhoods and making stories actionable when we can. Engaging people but also activating people in their communities.
Chris: We have several stories like that.
Shawn: Empowering for [the storytellers] themselves, but also connecting them to their neighbors and just seeing that little spark.
That had to be such a cool feeling!
Shawn: We knew that sharing stories could build empathy and stuff like that, but to actually see tangible change in a community first-hand... I don't think we could have guessed that would happen.
What’s your favorite thing about Cincinnati?
Shawn: I mean, there's something special about Cincinnati in that it feels like a small town even though it's a city. It's easier to get connected here and to do something like Cincy Stories than it is in bigger cities. Cincinnati is right for this kind of thing. It's big enough that when you do something really cool and it works and it grows, there's some traction there – you are making an impact – but it's small enough that you can know people and really create something. And that's a beautiful thing.
Chris: I like it because all of my stuff is here. [Laughs.] I grew up in the suburbs; we really only came down here for baseball games or field trips. I wanted to live in the city, but I didn't think Cincinnati fit that bill; I didn't see it as a city. So, I moved all around the country and I lived in several larger cities and it wasn't until later when I moved back that I really started to appreciate where I was from. What made me want to stay and work in this community was the fact that I felt like I had some ownership, that I was from here. Then I started to realize that Cincinnati's not as small or even as clique-ish [as people might think]. There are definitely pockets of people who have been here for a long time, but there are a lot of new people. It's a very dynamic city.
What are your goals for Cincy Stories?
Shawn: We just want to continue to grow. We're stepping deeper into the filmmaking side of things. We actually started on our first feature-length film this year about Q-KIDZ [Dance Studio]. We are making a feature-length documentary about them over the next year or two and that's the first feature-length that we have ever made. So, we want to just continue to grow that side of what we are doing.
Can you talk about an influential woman in your life?
Chris: Personally, whenever anyone asks me who has been really influential in my life, I really honestly struggle to name anyone. Because I am a person by committee, so a lot of small bricks have built the walls that are me and it's really hard to, like, define one person. A lot of them have been women. So, Marquicia Jones from Q-KIDZ: Every day I am more and more inspired to be a better person by Marquicia; everything she does is very selfless. Mary Delaney at Community Matters – the entire women-led team at Community Matters, but Mary Delaney in particular. With Mary and Marquicia, the common thread between the two is that they are two people who are constantly doing community work for all of the right reasons. It's great to be inspired by those two women, to keep your focus on the people that you are striving to help.
Shawn: I would say my mom. I am a total momma's boy. I’m a grandma's boy, too. My grandma passed away six years ago. They both were inspiring to me because they were the leaders of our family. I grew up in an incredibly conservative, religious environment that said women can't lead, women couldn't be pastors, women shouldn't be the president; everything that Women of Cincy is fighting against was what I grew up in. My mom and my grandma were in that environment – and wanted to be in that environment – yet led in spite of it. So it was a weird thing that they chose to be there, but they were still powerful leaders.
I would also say those are very inspiring people that Chris shared. I do standup comedy also and there's a woman named Luna Malbroux who's a standup comedian. She's Black and lesbian, and doing standup comedy in Cincinnati, that act is brave: openly talking about her experiences, often at Go Bananas! in Montgomery, Ohio, not the most open-minded area. Just the bravery that it takes to stand on a stage and share your story and yourself with people is really powerful and really brave to me.
What's the best piece of advice that you have ever received?
Chris: That it's okay to quit things. I think we have so much of a focus on “Don't give up. Don't quit.” But, some of the best decisions I've made in my life were quitting things. It's okay to give something up if it's not something you really want to do.
Shawn: Similar to that, it's okay to fail. So, try things and don't always expect to succeed. If you fail, it's not the end of the world. It's okay to not finish things all the time. I've failed at almost everything I've done in my life and yet, it's all been worth it.
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